Illusion to Reality

I am sure many have heard of this sentence many a times and taken it for granted. Many have asked and never get what they asked for. So is it a fallacy or is it the truth? Ask and you shall be given is in tandem with the law of cause and effect. What you intent is what you get. Every moment you are sending out intentions, whether you like it or not. And the experience you get is what you intent. The existence that you are having is all just intentions – either from ignorance or from wisdom – that is all it is.

My teacher used to remind me that what I want I can’t get. This statement seems contradictory to what the title of this entry is about. Only now, after a moment of aha, did I realize that he is coming from the same statement but with a hidden message. You see each time when you want something, you “want” is because you don’t want what is already here in your experience. For example, I want to be rich because I don’t want to be poor. I want more money because I don’t have enough money. I want a good relationship because I am not having one now. You get what I mean?

The “wanting” we have is “because of” something. And that something is what we don’t want. In other words, you want something else because you don’t want what is here. Do you realize the “don’t want” is a kind of want? You want the “don’t want” to exist. Similarly with dislike. When you dislike something, you are actually “will like to have that dislike removed”.

Let’s look at the want first. Want is what you are asking for. When you ask for something, you want something. So you want the “don’t want” to happen. So the law of cause and effect is pretty fair – ask and you shall be given – you will keep getting “don’t want to happen” as your experience. In other words you will keep having experiences that will invoke you to don’t want it to happen since that is what you ask for! If the opposite was to be your experience then there is fault in the law governing “ask and you shall be given”.

What about dislike? As I have mentioned dislike is to mean intending to “have that dislike removed” – and that is exactly what you will get – you will get the effect or the experience of “have that dislike removed” as your experience in the mind. You don’t get the opposite as you only get what you ask for. So if you wish to get the opposite, what is it that you have to intent?

You can’t intent white and get black. The law of cause and effect is just. It gives you experience as you exactly ask for. Can you intent riches without having the prior thought that you are poor? Yes. Only through acceptance and not seeing poor as not what you want, in other words you don’t see poor as wrong.

There is a difference between forward creation and reversal creation. Forward creation is from lack – wanting something because of what one does not have – it is a creation from what is already here – the dislike, hence dislike effect has to follow. Reversal creation is from recognizing with wisdom that the lack mentality is an error. It is a result of ignorant. Nothing can be disliked as it is already an effect and there is nothing for you to react on it. Hence if you think you are lack, your effect has to be lack since all thoughts are intention for the next. Cause and effect is not a separated two experiences but rather a followup of next.

Only if you can see lack as a mis-creation can true creation comes into being again. Give it a try the next time you ask and if you don’t get what you intended, sorry – you are still intending from ignorance – there is something that you are not seeing that is making you experience again what you have experienced before as that is what you have intent! Just be a little careful with what you asked for!

Can one ask for enlightenment? Not possible as enlightenment is not something or some place except a realization. So do you now see the value of the statement, thy will be done instead of my will be done? Forget about yourself and everything takes care of itself, beautifully.

Have you ever climbed a ladder before? I am sure you have. And most, if not all of us, will have forgotten about the usefulness of the ladder once we arrived at what we had needed it for in the first place. The purpose of the ladder is not for us to carry it around but to serve what is needed at that point of time. Imagine you are deeply grateful for the creation of the ladder – with each step you took on the rung, you are reluctant to let it go, simply because you felt it is ignoble to give up what has served you, where would you be then?

It may sound like a joke but in reality that is exactly what occurs in our lives. We cling on to things that serve our journey, each moment, and try reliving it as it bears much good memories of it, missing the moment that comes and passes by, totally absorbed in the imaginary past. That is not uncommon when we come to things that we are deeply attached to, irrespective whether it is animate or inanimate things. But we also do the same to unpleasant experiences too as if it is happening in our space again and again though what occurred before is done and over.

But what is more boggling is when we finally arrive at the final rung of the ladder when it is the moment calling us to totally let it go so as to step onto the arrival of where we are supposed to be. And imagine what it is like again, when out of indebtedness, one of the legs is still on the last rung of the ladder and the other foot safely on the ground where we are supposed to be. At this point of time, does the ladder serve its purpose? Definitely no, as that is not what it is all about.

The spiritual journey is what I am sharing about. The ladder or the teaching or whatever technique that we took on are merely means for us to finally arrive at the end of the journey; and for us to finally cross that threshold of the rung and the arrival itself, we have to fully abandon the means.

The end will not be experienced so long as we hold on dearly to what we think is true all the while. Guilt can be one reason to our inability to let go – as if it is an act of unfaithfulness. The simile of the boat has the same purpose – don’t expect to carry the boat once we arrive at the shore. It will not be considered arriving at the shore though one leg is already experiencing the ground, so long as the other leg is still on the boat surface.

The means are merely pointer to what we finally arrived at. There is no doubt that on the journey the means are important tools for us to work and probably respect on. Teachers or teachings are the same – when it is time for us to finally arrive, all concepts of their presence, which includes our adulation, our faithfulness of it all has to be surrendered totally to finally experience what they have invited us to savour. Not to give them up is to do disservice or injustice to what they have offered us. And to finally arrived at what those means are, is to offer reverence and appreciation for what has been given to us. The connection has to be severed to be connected again – it is simply paradoxical.

If mind is not spoken about
what else more is there
except all experiences
derived from it?

If ignorance is not spoken off
what else more is there
where shrouded in blindness
knows not it exists
making one a fool

If wisdom is not spoken off
what else more is there
where living in dis-ease
freedom is just as close
as the breath

If views are not differentiated
as right and wrong
what is life for
except meaningless
repetitive birth and death cycles

If birth is not resolved
so has the need to die
if death is not the end
so too is birth
the beginning has to end
the end to begin again

If the beginning seen
the end has to end
without end
how can beginning again
be possible?

To see the end
one has to see the beginning
for the end is.